The NCAA, Tampa Bay Local Organizing Committee and the Tampa Bay Sports Commission organized the inaugural “Dribble to Work Day” earlier this week. The event was aimed at raising awareness of the 2015 NCAA Women’s Final Four which will be held April 5 and 7 at Amalie Arena. Slated for ‘Selection Monday’, “Dribble to Work Day” was an engaging way to support the Women’s Final Four and its importance to the community.

“What better way to celebrate the start of the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament, than collectively dribbling to work on Selection Monday, March 16?” said Rob Higgins, Executive Director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission. “We hope everyone grabs a ball, dribbles into work, takes a video and shares on social media using #WFFDribble to show their support for Tampa Bay’s 2015 NCAA Women’s Final Four!”

Participants were encouraged to video their dribble episode and tag it on Twitter or Facebook using hashtag #WFFDribble. The person with the most creative dribble video will be selected by the Local Organizing Committee to take the first shot on the newly installed NCAA Women’s Final Four court at Amalie Arena.

So what was the result? Watch this recap video to see how the community rallied around the initiative and how it helped build on the great momentum that’s happening for the upcoming Women’s Final Four.

“If the selection committee wants to get it right, and find the most knowledgeable people about the sport of football, go get people who played the game and preferably coached the game,” Bowden said at Monday’s Knoxville Quarterback Club meeting, according to the Knoxville News-Sentinel. “… But just because she likes to watch football doesn’t necessarily mean she knows anything about football.”

This actually reminded me of other conversations I’ve had with sports business personnel that are looking to hire for their departments, where they specifically mention that they want someone with sports experience. You’ll also see this on almost every job description on any team or league website. I understand this desire for industry background, as it can be quite valuable depending on the role, but overall, I think in our industry, we can also fall victim to this approach in a way that limits our potential performance.

Now I’m not saying that I’d want to hire someone without a sports background to be a head coach, but that is because the applicant is unlikely to have the skills necessary for the job. However, in most other positions, whether it’s sales, marketing, finance, customer service or analytics, the relevant skill set can be developed, and often times further developed by someone who has worked outside of the sports industry. My day-to-day background is more in the CRM, database and digital realm, and I know teams sometimes struggle to find the right new hire in these roles. However, if you expand your search outside of sports, there are lots of highly qualified candidates in this area. I’ve seen great sales representative come from financial services, excellent customer service staff come from telecommunications and top brand marketers come from retail.

Now you may say the Condoleeza Rice example falls more in line with choosing a coach than a sales representative, but I disagree. The goal of the CFP selection committee is to take an overall set of performance data, evaluate the performers and come to a collective decision. This is a complex process, which involves more than just understanding of football. There are plenty of coaches and football personnel involved in the committee that have the requisite skills to evaluate the more intricate components of the on-field product. However, many of those individuals will have differing opinions, some perhaps inadvertently biased. The skills that you need on this committee are related to receiving complex and sometimes incomplete information from multiple perspectives, evaluating the arguments and helping to identify a solution. Now that sounds a LOT like what Condoleeza Rice has tremendous experience with from her political background. And I would go one step further in saying that because she does not have a football background, her decision process is even more likely to be objective, something I think everyone would agree college athletics needs a little more of.

In the last several years, we’ve seen and will continue to see the sports world go from an “old-fashioned, this is how we always do it” type of business to a modern, sophisticated industry like any other. Our willingness to look towards non-traditional applicants with rich skill sets that just happened to be developed outside of sports is just another way to advance that evolution.

I’m always on the lookout for new, out-of-the-box ticket promotions, so when I got this email campaign from Rutgers, it definitely peaked my interest.

Essentially, if you purchase a ticket at the “UWin” price for the first non-conference men’s basketball game, you get a free ticket to the next home game, and you can continue to get free tickets to each subsequent non-conference game as long as Rutgers wins.

Historically, Rutgers men’s basketball has not been a very competitive program, so this is an interesting way to drive interest in these early season games. From a pure revenue perspective, there is a chance that if the team performs well, they could be “leaving money on the table.” However, the momentum they’d get both from the team performance and the enthusiasm from fans that get to attend more games for free could generate a lift in ticket sales later on in the season. Additionally, several of these games are during the school’s winter break, which typically leads to lower attendance, so this could help during that window of time. If this initial offer goes well, but they lose during this first month of the season, I wouldn’t be surprised to see them try this again for the final two weeks of the non-conference schedule.

I don’t think you’re likely to see a campaign like this from a professional sports team, but there are variations that could definitely be applicable. Baseball teams could do this for some of their lower-priced seats over the course of a single homestand. Basketball or hockey teams could do this for preseason games, or maybe specifically for youth tickets in certain lower-yield sections of the building. Finally, the offer could always be for a discounted ticket after a win instead of a free ticket.

It’s time for another edition of Infographic Friday. Today’s entry, which comes to us from AECOM and the Ohio University Center for Sport Administration, shares insights on current college athletic directors’ plans for future facility improvements and their impact on fan experience as well as their opinion on the impact of social vs. paid advertising in drawing first-time attendees.

It looks like Infographic Friday came a day early this week, thanks to some great insights that were release earlier today. Adobe’s Digital Index team conducted some in-depth analysis on the social buzz surrounding the start of the professional and college football seasons. Here are a few of the key takeaways from their work:

Strength of the NFL: There are approximately 50% more social mentions of “NFL” compared to MLB and NBA in the two months leading up to the start of the most current season.

Johnny Social? Johnny Manziel might not start for the Browns this season, but he already leads the league in social buzz generated by players, almost double the amount of the number two player who is just a little more established, Tom Brady.

Bad Behavior, Big Buzz: A whopping 55% of total NFL social buzz prior to the pre-season related to sadness, anger, disgust or surprise, driven primarily by the “unbecoming” behavior by a few players. However, once the first pre-season game started, the sentiment completely flipped to 69% positive.

Big-Time College Football: While the top three mentioned football teams were NFL clubs, the LSU Tigers, USC Trojans and Texas Longhorns had more social mentions than 25 other NFL teams.

Heated Rivalries: Social trash talk might be more intense than what happens on the field. More than half of the social buzz that mentions both the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks relates to anger, sadness or disgust.

“In the United States, football is king, but I was surprised at how much more buzz soccer gets internationally. For example, Real Madrid, the world’s highest valued team, had 14x more social buzz over the last 30 days than the New York Giants, the highest mentioned NFL team. However, 20% of the buzz about the NFL is coming from outside the U.S. It will be interesting to see what that grows to after the three games are played at Wembley Stadium in London this year.”

Based on this research, what advice would you give to social sports marketers?

“We found through this analysis and the analysis of the World Cup really how much buzz is happening around these sports. Marketers need to understand that sporting events are naturally social and provide a good opportunity to get brand awareness through sponsoring a team or through more guerrilla tactics of latching onto a largely engaged and targeted audience.”

It’s becoming more common for players to take out these types of insurance policies themselves, but the premiums can be quite expensive. However, in this case, Texas A&M is paying for the policy, not the player. The football program clearly feels that keeping this player on the team for another year was worth spending upwards of $60,000.

Apparently, the NCAA said there was no problem with this, as they determined that it falls within the scope of the “Student Assistance Fund.” However, something about this does not sit right with me. Technically, the student is not getting paid by the university, so it’s not an “amateur vs. professional” or “pay the players” argument…although some would argue if a school is willing and able to pay for an insurance policy, shouldn’t they just start paying the players? The issue that popped to my mind was the idea of how this can possibly fit within the rules of Title IX.

Participation: There should be equal participation opportunity for men and women, and schools must pass one of three “tests” to comply.

Athletic Financial Assistance: The number of scholarships must be allocated proportionally to the number of male/female student athletes.

Treatment: There are eleven other criteria, ranging from facilities to scheduling and academic resources where male and female athletes must receive equal treatment.

From my research, this could be an issue with regard to financial assistance or treatment:

Financial Assistance: As far as I can imagine, I don’t see “assistance” in this form being made proportionally available to female athletes who participate in primarily non-revenue generating sports. This decision was almost surely made due to the financial impact that football has and how he is viewed as a significant contributor to that program. The Title IX rule in this area specifically focuses on the number of scholarships, so the insurance policy might not “technically” fall here but this feels like a difference in financial assistance to me.

Treatment: There are two criteria in this category where purchasing this type of insurance could conflict: Provision of Medical Training Facilities and Services and Recruitment of Student Athletes. This policy specifically addresses the potential medical issue of a career ending injury, and the decision to purchase this policy was to “recruit” this athlete to stay in school vs. turn pro. Would a similar policy be used to provide the same type of medical services or recruitment towards a female student-athlete?

Am I reading too much into this? Should the NCAA take another look at this beyond the scope of the Student Assistance Fund and more in terms on the overall landscape of equal treatment of scholarship athletes? I am by no means an expert on Title IX, so if anyone has some insight or opinions on this, please share them in the comments.

Val Ackerman is the commissioner of the Big East Conference. Tanner Simkins recently sat down with the founding WNBA President and former USA Basketball President for a discussion on her leadership and commentary on her career. Ackerman’s brief bio is provided after the Q&A.

**** ***** ****

Full Court Press: For those who may be unfamiliar, tell us about yourself and your work?

Val Ackerman: I’m currently the Commissioner of the BIG EAST conference, which is one of the 32 conferences in Division i of the NCAA. I previously served as President of the WNBA (eight years) and President of USA Basketball, and am concluding a second term as the US representative to the International Basketball federation (FIBA).

FCP: Why sports?

VA: I’ve had a lifelong interest in sports. I played many sports in my home town growing up, was a varsity letter winner in three sports in high school (field hockey, basketball and outdoor track) and attended the University of Virginia on a basketball scholarship. It’s a dream to be in sports as a profession.

FCP: Describe your leadership style?

VA: Hands-on and collaborative. I’m deliberative and like to have a lot of information before I make a decision.

FCP: What are some industry trends or developments that you are closely following?

VA: NCAA governance reform and NCAA legal actions involving student-welfare (O’Bannon litigation, Kessler lawsuit and Northwestern unionization effort). Will keep an eye on FIFA World Cup. Anything having to do with women’s sports.

FCP: Who is someone you learned the most from? What did they teach you?

VA: David Stern: taught me to always be prepared and that no detail is too small.

FCP: What is your biggest regret?

VA: Certain WNBA teams folded under my watch. I’m sorry we couldn’t make the league work in those markets.

FCP: If you go back, what would you tell you?

VA: Balancing work and family is harder than you can imagine and there’s no magic formula.

FCP: What was the last book you read?

VA: John Grisham — The Racketeer. Airport pick-up and it got me through three flights last week.

FCP: Any tips for aspiring sports professionals who may be reading this?

VA: Work hard; be reliable; have a good attitude; follow your passion; make your boss look good!

**** ***** ****

Val Ackerman was named the Commissioner of the Big East Conference on June 26, 2013. She has spent 25 years in the sports business as an attorney and executive, primarily in the sport of basketball, where her experience has encompassed both the men’s and women’s games at the collegiate, professional and international levels. Val was the founding President of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and a past President of USA Basketball, which oversees the U.S. men’s and women’s Olympic basketball program. She currently serves as the U.S. representative for men’s and women’s basketball on the Central Board of the International Basketball Federation (FIBA), the sport’s world governing body.

Special thanks to Tanner Simkins for conducting the interview. Follow him at @TannerSimkins for sports business insights and analysis.

It’s time for another edition of Infographic Friday. Today’s submission features a game recap of a Ohio University football game from earlier this fall. While this specific infographic isn’t business related, I wanted to highlight the emerging trend of using infographics for game summaries and insights. This is a great way to make recaps more engaging than the traditional text-only articles. It also encourages more social distribution of the content, which is particularly important after a victory in creating more positive touchpoints with the fans.

Click on the image to see all the infographics that Preston McClellan (@p_mcclellan) has created for Ohio University football so far this season.

We’re going for a double dose of Infographic Friday today! Here’s a bonus post that give a fairly in-depth breakdown of the costs associated with equipping a college football team, along with some rankings and revenue numbers related to college licensing and merchandise sponsorship deals. Enjoy!

I had the opportunity to attend the New York premiere of “Schooled: The Price of College Sports” on Tuesday night. The screening was followed by a town hall discussion with the film’s producers, student athletes, coaches, and industry executives.

The film, “Schooled: The Price of College Sports,” airs October 16th at 8:00pm ET on EPIX. It is a documentary focusing on the debate of college sports and student athlete compensation. Essentially, the true question of the film and the panel was, “do student athletes deserve to be paid, or is a tuition-free education enough?” You can watch a trailer for the film below or click here for more clips available on the EPIX YouTube channel:

I will highlight several points brought up in conversation during the event, all of which are in favor of paying college athletes, or allowing them more liberties to make money (such as endorsements or sponsorship). If you already feel this way, you will agree with the panelists, and hopefully dig deeper into your belief. If you fall on the other side, and do not think college athletes should be paid, perhaps you will gain some perspective in one way or another.

Taylor Branch told a story about when he spoke to a university class, and at one point, a student pointed out that his school’s football and basketball players, “are not viewed the same as most of his fellow students.” He said, “student athletes are either looked up to as a superstar, or looked down on as a jock.” Branch went on to pose the question, “if you (universities) don’t want to pay your players, how can you profit off of them for business?”

NFLPA President Domonique Foxworth said college athletes are integral to the overall business. He also shared his experience as a student athlete, and stressed the education he received was certainly not like the education of his classmates. Foxworth said, “there was a list of majors and programs you would see in all the pamphlets and reading materials. Then, my advisor pulled out a separate, shorter list of majors for student athletes, ones that were much more feasible for us to take.” Foxworth ended with, “our motivations were unlike other students too. The coaches wanted to win in order to make more money, so our priority was to win in order to please the coaches. School was not our priority.”

Former UNC footballer Devon Ramsay spoke about his struggles as a student athlete, and the story behind the NCAA’s decision to declare him permanently ineligible. Why was Ramsay banned? In October of 2010, he was told after practice that he was guilty of academic misconduct for emailing a tutor to look over a paper for minor edits. That email was sent two years prior. Ramsay said, “after that, all I did was visit my friends at nearby schools. I hung out anywhere besides UNC for a while.”

Andrew Muscato, the film’s producer, touched upon his greatest challenge while making the film: getting student athletes to share their story in front of a camera. Inspired by an article that Branch wrote in October of 2011, Muscato found documenting the industry and its issues to be manageable. However, it was putting faces to these stories that brought about the most difficulties. Students were reluctant to speak out, executives were bashful to share opinion (48 of the 50 schools that were contacted declined to comment), and everyone hesitated to remove the veil. Fortunately, Muscato found the right people in Ramsay, Branch, and several others, to share their stories of the realities in college athletics.

Whether or not you side with the panelists, the issue of student athlete compensation will certainly continue in the sports industry. The debate stems from numerous sides too: the NCAA, the institutions, the student athletes, the families, the sponsors, and so many more. While the tens of billions of dollars surrounding college sports will ultimately stay, the payout could very well shift.

Tyler Becker is a senior at New York University studying Sports Management and Media. You can find him on Twitter at @TylerJBecker.